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By Root 1631 0

past, usually with good results, but those had not been the result of a sword blow that drove the mail into the flesh. At home, he would have bound fresh leaves of herbs against the swelling, to aid healing. Here … was nothing. Not even clean cloths. Nothing to do but set it anyway. He pulled firmly, feeling the bones grate; Burek made no noise. Finally, he felt what he had hoped for—larger pieces were end to end, at least—and he bound on the splints, with Selis’s help. When that was done, Burek let out a long hiss of breath. Andressat touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. It meant more than one thing; he saw from Burek’s expression that the young man took all that meaning.

“It’s better,” Burek said. That, too, might mean more than his arm. “We need to get moving.”

“A sling,” Andressat said. He fashioned a sling and helped Burek put the splinted arm into it. Selis helped Burek sit up.

“We’ll get the horses, sir, and—I suppose we’ll be taking Dort’s body? There’s no way to bury him up here.”

“Yes. Kerin, you know this country—how far to a border fort?”

“We might make it today, Captain,” Andressat said. “What about the enemy’s arms?”

“We’ll take those, too, if the horses can carry the load—wasn’t yours hit?”

When Andressat stood again, he could see the horses not far away, nibbling the frostbitten turf. One—the one he’d been riding—still had an arrow sticking from its neck. “Mine still has the bolt in its neck,” he said. “Could be a bad wound, could be nothing—won’t know until we get it out.”

It took another full glass or more to catch the horses, strip the enemy dead of weapons and money—“Sorellin coins—bet they’re counterfeit,” Burek remarked—and load Dort’s body, wrapped in his own cloak, onto the pack horse. Andressat’s horse carried a light pack; he rode Dort’s, and they set off at a foot pace.

It was near dark when Andressat spotted the border fort tower. “Ride ahead—” he began, then looked at Burek. Burek’s face was pale, taut with pain. “Sorry, Captain—”

“Good idea, though. Cam, go on and let them know we’re coming …” He glanced at Andressat. “Should he—?”

“Yes,” Andressat said. He reached into his belt-pouch and handed Cam a ring. “Show this, but only if you’re sure it’s Andressat troops.”

Cam rode off at a hand gallop. Before they had covered half the distance—slower, now that it was dark—they saw torches approaching. Andressat’s second son came with the party that met them.

“Sir, I was about ready to set out in search for you, though you had told us not to—I had no idea—”

“Nor I, Meddthal. I have traveled far indeed—but here we have a man injured—this is Burek, a captain in Phelan’s Company.”

“Burek—” Meddthal said; in the torchlight his expression was hard to read.

“Indeed,” Andressat said. “And the reason I am alive to greet you. Is there a surgeon at the fort?”

“Yes—” Meddthal glanced again at Burek. “Captain, can you ride another glass, or—”

“I can ride,” Burek said. “But not fast.”

That night Andressat watched by Burek’s bed. The surgeon had given him numbwine enough to put him to sleep, then unwrapped Andressat’s splints and shook his head over the arm.

“It is not the broken bones—you know this yourself, my lord Count. It is the damage to muscle and sinew. And I understand you had no herbs, not there in the open.”

Dark-bruised and twice its normal size, the arm looked grotesquely like that of a sun-swollen corpse. Andressat repressed a shudder. He had sent the lad away in anger … and now the man might lose his arm. “What can you do?”

“I gave him an infusion of cooling herbs with the numbwine; as you know, that is specific for wound swelling and also wound fever, but that was only a half-glass ago. I am cooling a paste of ganteh and lurz in tallow. If the swelling goes down, we may be able to save the arm. If not—”

“We must save it,” Andressat said, surprised at the tone of his own voice. “I must talk with my son.”

In the other room, Meddthal had a hot meal laid out. “Sir, isn’t that the—”

“Yes,” Andressat said. He sat down heavily. His sons knew he’d not liked Aesil M’dierra